Everybody Pays

by Andrew Vachss

  Lorraine knew all this. Well, not about what happened in prison, but the rest. So the reason she asked me, did I want to be partners with her, that was because of what I did. The murder, I mean. I know that was it.

  What she told me was, this guy—the one who’d made her a summer girl—he had a lot of money. Cash money. In a safe. In his house. Not his summer house, his city house. And all we’d have to do is go there and take it.

  I told her, if it was that easy, how come she hadn’t done it herself?

  She said she didn’t have a key or anything. So we needed to get in his house when he was there, and make him tell us exactly where the money was. In a safe, probably. Two things: Get in the house, and make him talk. Lorraine said she could get in the house. She knew all about him. She knew when he’d be there alone. And as soon as he opened the door, I would come in too. And make him tell us.

  I told her I would think about this.

  Then I just listened to what other people in the town said.

  Lorraine had been a summer girl a couple of times again after the first one. She hadn’t been broken like the others. She knew what the deal was. She wasn’t such a young girl anymore, but she looked real good.

  Clarisse, she was a whore. She worked a couple of towns over, out of an apartment. She even had her number in the newspapers—one of the guys in the bar showed me. It was like they was all proud of her. A celebrity.

  I saw Lorraine the next week. I told her it didn’t make sense, what she wanted to do. The guy, he’d be able to identify us pretty easy. And no matter what he promised, he’d tell the cops. Or somebody.

  Lorraine said she knew that. Just looked at me when she said it.

  I told her I wasn’t going to take the weight for a homicide. She told me she’d never talk. I laughed at her. I could see it, what she wanted. Maybe the money, sure. But she hated the guy for making her a summer girl. This wasn’t really about the money, it was about making him pay. Prison was full of people like her. People who you couldn’t pay with money—it always had to be blood.

  But I didn’t say none of that. I just told her, no way I was going to do a murder, no matter for how much money, if it meant I had to trust her.

  She asked me, what would she have to do to prove I could trust her?

  I told her where Clarisse lived.

  for Honey & Pokey

  BIG SISTER

  When she didn’t come on Visiting Day, I knew what it meant. There’s only one thing that would make Margaret miss coming to see me.

  It’s always been like that, my big sister looking out for me. She’s only nine years older, but it was like she was my mother. I guess she was, when I think about it. My mother died when I was born. Died giving birth to me, my father always said when he was mad. Or drunk. Which is pretty much how he was all the time.

  My sister is the only one I can ever remember taking care of me. I mean, my father worked, so I guess he did part of it too—paying the rent and buying food. But it was Margaret who did everything else.

  She even went to the Catholic school when they kicked me out the first time. The nuns were so impressed with her, only fifteen years old and all, they let me stay. But it didn’t matter. My father said that’s what he expected. He couldn’t beat any sense into me, so what made Margaret think the nuns could? Margaret told him that hitting me wasn’t the way to teach me anything, and my father slapped her. By the time I got the knife from the kitchen, he had stopped, but Margaret was still crying, so I tried to stab him anyway.

  Everybody came to the house. The police and the social workers and people from the church and neighbors. It was like a zoo. And I was the animal.

  Finally, they said it was up to my father. He went into the bedroom with Margaret and closed the door so they could talk. When they came out, my father said he wanted to keep me. So they didn’t take me away.

  I went to public school. It was a lot better. They didn’t pay so much attention to you.

  The first time I got arrested, it was Margaret who came to the station. She was all grown by then. The cops let me go back with her.

  The first time I went to juvenile court, Margaret went with me too. And the judge let me go home with her.

  Margaret was good at that stuff.

  But when I got to be around thirteen, fourteen, I don’t remember exactly, whatever Margaret did to convince people about me, it didn’t work. So I didn’t go home with her that time. I went away. It was only for a little while.

  Then it happened again, and I went away for longer. When I came back, I was seventeen. Margaret was living with a man. He was an old man. Almost like my father. Margaret told me I could stay with them until I got a job and my own place.

  What happened was, I did jobs. But Margaret didn’t know anything about that. Everything would have been okay, maybe, if that man hadn’t hit her. I don’t even remember his name.

  Margaret went to court with me again. She told the jury how the man had beat her all the time. She said some of the things he made her do. I started crying when I heard it. I couldn’t help it.

  The jury let me go home with her.

  I was out for almost five years before they got me. I wasn’t so surprised. I was very good at doing people, but I was never slick.

  The cops knew it wasn’t personal. They knew I didn’t know the men I’d done. They knew I was in O’Donnell’s crew too. But that was all they knew, and I didn’t tell them anything. The DA said they could give me a good deal. I was a young man. I could be out in ten years at the most if I told them who ordered the hits. If I didn’t talk, I was going away forever.

  I didn’t tell them anything. After a while, they could see I was never going to.

  Margaret visited me in the jail, before the trial. I told her the truth like I always do. I told her what I did. The different jobs, all of them. I told her I wasn’t going to get off. Not this time. But I promised her everything would be all right. Wherever they sent me, I could still protect her. I promised her that. She told me not to worry. She said she could take care of herself. But she didn’t look at me when she said it.

  O’Donnell got me a lawyer. He wasn’t too bad, but I knew what his real job was. So I told the lawyer to stop worrying—just tell O’Donnell I’d never rat him out so long as he did this one thing for me. The lawyer, he said that would never be a problem, guaranteed. O’Donnell’s name never came up at the trial. I never took the stand, so they couldn’t even ask me.

  I got twenty-five to life—that’s the most they have here.

  The first time Margaret visited me, when I was Upstate, she was a mess. She looked so old, I almost didn’t recognize her.

  She told me about it, finally.

  And O’Donnell kept his word.

  It didn’t happen again for almost three years. Margaret tried to explain it to me. She had been in therapy to understand herself, why she kept going back to the same kind of guys. She told me that she had low self-esteem. From not being pretty and not dating when she was a girl and being too fat and . . . something she had to do with my father to keep him from sending me away. There was nothing I could do about that. He was already dead. His liver.

  I told her she was a real pretty girl, and she could get any guy she wanted. She told me her youth was gone. She wasn’t a girl anymore. She was too old to do anything except work and live with guys who beat her up and took her money now.

  O’Donnell got that one done too.

  I didn’t feel bad about it. He owed me. Anyway, they got word to me: There was a guy in here who was going to be a problem for O’Donnell, and I took care of him. Fair is fair.

  After a while, Margaret must have figured out what was going on—she knew I could tell when one of those men was hurting her. Margaret never missed a visit, so, when she didn’t come this time, I knew what the reason was. She was afraid I’d be able to tell.

  I knew the name of the guy she was living with, and the place where they lived too. Margaret wrote me letters. She was the
only one who did.

  When she didn’t come, I didn’t need to talk to her. I knew what to do.

  Margaret missed three more visits, then she came. She looked better. We didn’t say anything about the guy. She told me she was still in therapy, but she was worried that she would fall back into old habits. Patterns, she called them.

  Over the next few years, she fell back into that pattern four more times. Then the cops came to see me.

  “We know you’re the one getting these guys done,” the younger one said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Ah, Mickey’s too smart to go for that,” the older cop told his partner. “He knows another few life sentences won’t matter—you can only do one of them, and Mickey’s never getting out anyway.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You’re working O’Donnell’s boys pretty hard,” the older one told me. “Must be averaging a hit a year, just keeping you quiet.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I got something to show you,” he said.

  I took a look at the papers he had. There were photographs of Margaret. She looked good in the pictures. Young and happy. One of them, she was getting into a new Cadillac. There was bank statements and other stuff too. And a picture of a house. Margaret was standing in front of it, smiling. Her arm was around another woman, a smaller woman, nice-looking, with short hair.

  “Your sister’s real smart,” the older cop said. “You know she’s the most reliable hitter in the city now? A contract killer. And the beauty part is, she gets O’Donnell’s crew to do all the work.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t look at him.

  “She hasn’t lived with a man in a long time, kid,” the older cop said to me. Real soft and gentle. “She likes girls, your sister Margaret. Those addresses where she tells you she lives? Those aren’t her addresses. They’re the addresses of guys who got contracts out on them. That’s some big sister you got, Mickey.”

  “She sure is,” I told him. Proud.

  for Doris

  TIME SHARE

  I am not an emotional man. Even the mathematical calculations to which I have devoted my life arouse no excitement in me.

  Nothing does.

  I live in a functioning fugue state, shielded by the implacability of numbers. Cross-trained as a mathematician and accountant, I work for an investment-banking house. I construct financial end-outcome models and convert them to macro-programs for global applicability.

  Despite what is popularly believed, mathematics is not—can never be—an exact science. Viewed properly, numbers may be seen as tools to assess probability of outcome. My work is to narrow the parameters of probability.

  Another man in my position would have wondered if Tessa is a whore. Another man might have tortured himself by using his skills to calculate the probabilities.

  Tessa dances at a club. Dances naked, or very nearly so. She is not a showgirl in the Vegas sense of the word. Tessa does not dance at a distance. She does not remain on the stage. She . . . interacts . . . with the patrons.

  Tessa says she has never had sex with a man for money. I suppose—or I would suppose, if I were a man who engaged in suppositions—it is a matter of definition. From observation, there seems little question but that the patrons are . . . gratified by Tessa’s attentions. And those attentions are certainly for sale. But the equation is not so simple. And, as I possess a viable all-outcomes solution, of no consequence.

  Like anyone else, I must pay to be with Tessa. As my salary-and-bonus package is quite significant, time purchase on a limited basis is not a financial strain.

  I discovered Tessa is not a whore in the traditional sense. This discovery was without benefit of research. Perhaps there is a lesson in that. I proposed sex with her in exchange for money . . . whatever hourly rate she deemed appropriate. That’s when she told me she does not engage in such transactions.

  I might have remained in my capsule but for her refusal. Not the refusal itself. The patent disappointment she displayed—disappointment in me, I am certain—that was the catalyst.

  And I am equally certain that to possess Tessa is a matter of economics. She does what she does for money. Just as I do what I do for money. A sufficient amount of money could, simply speaking, purchase her time. In total.

  I think best within a structure. I see Tessa as a time-share condominium. As I wish no others to use the facility, my solution is to purchase it outright.

  I pondered the possibilities. A direct purchase was out of the question. Only an income stream would guarantee the net effect I sought. My current resources, liquidated, would be sufficient to purchase Tessa’s time continuously for approximately 1.44 years.

  That is not a solution. The end-sum would self-determine. When my resources eventually depleted, Tessa would return to her employment. However, her employability would, necessarily, have diminished over time. Much like a conventional mortgage, where each successive payment covers more of the principal (and, obviously, less of the interest), Tessa has a limited professional life—she must either retire rather early or face a diminishing return for her services.

  Therefore, an outright purchase of time is the solution, if only as a theoretical possibility. Given that my current holdings, even if they brought full-assessed value, would not amount to much in excess of a half-million dollars, and given that my calculations indicate I would need a yearly income of approximately that very same amount to maintain Tessa, a conservative estimate of the increase needed is obtained by the equation: 8% of x = $500,000/year. The answer, obviously, is $6.25 million.

  Over time, of course, I would expect to amass a relatively similar sum, assuming the tax-sheltered portion of my portfolio performs as expected throughout the next 18.6 years. However, purchasing Tessa’s time then would be of little utility . . . albeit certainly cheaper.

  Reduced to its essentials, I need the money now.

  Some of our firm’s clients have acquired their own fortunes by less than patrician means. From one such individual, I heard the term “bridge jumper.” Apparently, this is a gambler who bets an extraordinary amount on the closest he could calculate to be a “sure thing.” An example would be an overpoweringly successful racehorse—say, Secretariat—running against very inferior opposition. The bridge jumper would bet everything on Secretariat to show, the odds of such a horse’s finishing within the top three being in excess of the actual price the horse would pay—the latter being governed by law. This simply takes advantage of an inherent flaw in any parimutuel system. Such a system is designed to have each bettor wager against all the others, so that the wagers placed determine the odds posted. The racetrack takes a percentage of the total amount wagered, and pays the remainder out, proportionately, to the winning bettors. However, if all the wagers were placed on the same horse, a so-called “minus pool” would result . . . and the track’s own money would be at risk should that horse succeed.

  This is an extremely rare occurrence, but the situation I described previously would cause an approximation of such an event. Why, therefore, do the racetracks not simply bar wagering in such situations? While that would be mathematically intelligent, the law prohibits it. The minimum payout on any wager is $2.10. But even if the resulting 5-percent profit appears insignificant at first blush, one must consider the implications of a 5-percent return within the less than two minutes the race itself takes. Projected out over a year’s period, the percentage return would be astronomical.

  Of course, nothing is certain. Even the finest racehorse may stumble. Or suffer a sudden bout of illness. Or even be subject to deliberate manipulation by its handlers. That is why, the client told me, such gamblers are called bridge jumpers. If their wager does not pay off, their choices are . . . limited.

  So are mine.

  I need approximately a 1,200-percent increase in my holdings . . . say 1,300 percent to be secure, given some potential liquidation difficulties. Even were I to resort to the bridge-jumping sort
of wager the client described, I would need to find several hundred “sure-thing” candidates. And the odds of them all performing as expected—to say nothing of the time required—would render the wager itself ludicrous.

  Arbitrage is, essentially, wagering. Should the deutsche mark, for example, be trading at $0.97 in America while simultaneously trading for $0.96 in Germany, a massive purchase of that currency (for immediate resale) could, theoretically, produce a substantial profit within seconds. Much less than the 5-percent profit the horse player would expect. But a currency race can be run much faster—mere seconds would suffice.

  At roughly one cent to the dollar (slightly less than 1 percent), I would need to purchase and sell approximately point six billion dollars worth of currency to reach my goal.

  My firm has access to more than twice that amount in clients’ accounts.

  Others have attempted what I intend to accomplish. They gambled with their companies’ money, hoping a win would enable them to replace the “stake” and retain the profits. An analysis of previous attempts reveals nothing but abysmal failures, Barclay’s being a sadly illustrative example. Of course, the individuals in question gambled much smaller sums, and on much riskier propositions (commodity options being a favorite).

  I have targeted nineteen separate currencies. Tomorrow at approximately 3:00 a.m., I will launch the computer program in which I have invested several months of research and development. If it succeeds, the overage from the transactions will be vacuumed into my account before this office opens for business that day.

  I will know the outcome before anyone else.

  And once I know, I will act. Whatever the outcome, I will be purchasing Tessa’s time. For the rest of my life.